Paul Rowley’s Salford Red Devils have only named a 16-man squad to face St Helens in their Super League opener.
The Red Devils take on St Helens at the Totally Wicked Stadium live on BBC Two with the game kicking off at 5:30 pm, however, the contest will see Salford field a very young team.
Despite the club announcing that they had been taken over by a consortium headed up by Swiss banker Dario Berta, they have not had their £1.2 million salary cap restriction lifted in time for this fixture.
That cap had not been lifted for the Challenge Cup game against Midlands Hurricanes but Salford were still able to select players such as Nene Macdonald, Jayden Nikorima and Joe Mellor among others.
For today’s match against St Helens, the three most notable players are Wigan loanee Tiaki Chan and veterans Ben Hellewell and Joe Bullock with all three starting from the bench.
That means that the starting 13 is made up primarily of reserve team and academy players with the shirt numbers reflective of that, going up to number 41.
Sky Sports pundit Jon Wilkin argued that it was an act of Salford “throwing the teddies out” but the concerning aspect now regards player safety with no 18th man and not even a full complement on the bench.
As for St Helens, they have handed Super League debuts to Tristan Sailor and Kyle Feldt with Paul Wellens naming a full-strength team for the game.
One interesting selection is Harry Robertston at centre, a positon that the young back has trained at in the pre-season, whilst Lewis Murphy is selected on the wing instead of Jon Bennison.
😇 Your Saints lineup for Round One against @SalfordDevils
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➡ https://t.co/4Ri3IWZuHs#COYS pic.twitter.com/IloS4LnRN9— St.Helens R.F.C. (@Saints1890) February 15, 2025
Today’s line-up for R1 of the @SuperLeague season 👹
ℹ️: https://t.co/iOsjGyfM4q pic.twitter.com/SLMDjt5dNn
— Salford Red Devils 👹 (@SalfordDevils) February 15, 2025
